Sabres News

Sharpen Up: October 21, 2016

The Buffalo Sabres ran into a hot goaltender last night as the Western Canadian road trip came to an end with a 2-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. Nicholas Baptiste scored his first NHL goal and Buffalo will take the ice again on Tuesday in Philadelphia.

As you can see, at first it looked like it may have been Nicolas Deslauriers' first goal of the year, but after the double review, the players even grabbed the puck because they had a feeling it would go to Baptiste. Sure enough, after the game, the scoring change was made official.

"We've been emphasizing getting pucks to the net and hadn't shot enough in the last couple games," Baptiste said. "I just tried to get it to the net and obviously it was a fortunate bounce to kind of pinball in there."

Through two games, Baptiste, a third-round pick in 2013, has a goal, but, amazingly, has yet to register a shot.

Unable to break through

As Jourdon LaBarber mentioned in the game recap, Buffalo peppered Vancouver goaltender Jacob Markstrom with 26 shots - including 14 in the second period - and had a great deal of quality scoring chances, but Markstrom help strong to give the Canucks a 4-0-0 record.

The Sabres allowed their first power-play goal of the season on what ended up being the game winner, Daniel Sedin's tally 9:10 into the third period.